200 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



April 



fabics' department. 



From Chambers' Journal. 

 QBANDFATHER'S PET. 



This is the room where she slept, 



Only a year ago — 

 Quiet and carefully swept, 



Blinds and curtains like snow. 

 There, by the bed in the dusky gloom, 



She would kneel with her tiny elapsed hands, and 

 pray! 

 Here is the little white rose of a room, 



With the fragrance fled away I 



Nelly, grandfiithcr's pet. 



With her wise little face, — 

 I seem to hear her yet 



Singing about the place ; 

 But the crowds roll on, and the streets are drear, 



And the world seems hard with a bitter doom, 

 And Nelly is singing elsewhere, — and here 



Is the little white rose of a room. 



Why, if she stood just there. 



As she used to do, 

 With h- r long, light yellow hair. 



And her eyes of blue, — 

 If she stood, I say, at the edge of the bed, 



And ran to my side with a living touch, 

 Thoui^h I know she is quiet, and buried and dead, 



I should not wonder much ; 



For she was so young, you know, — 



Only seven years old ; 

 And she loved me, loved me, so. 



Though I was gray and old ; 

 And her face was so wise, so sweet to see, 



And it still looked living when she lay dead, 

 And she used to plead for mother and me, 



By the aide of that very bed I 



I wonder, now, if she 



Knows I am standing here, 

 Feeling, wherever she be, 



We hold the place so dear? 

 It cannot be thit she sleeps too sound. 



Still in her nightgown drest, 

 Not to hear my footsteps sound 



In the room where she used to rest. 



I have felt hard fortune's stings, 



And battled in doubt and strife, 

 And never thought much of things 



Beyond the human life; 

 But I cannot think that my darling died 



Like great strong men, with their prayers untrue — 

 Nay I rather she sits at God's own side. 



And sings as she used to do I 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY; 



OR, 



HOW TO MAKE HOIME PLEASANT. 



BY ANNE O. HALE. 



[Entered according to Act of CongrcBS, In the year 

 1866, by R. P. Eaton & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the 

 District Court for the District of MassacbusettA.] 



CHAPTKR IX. 

 CHILDREN'S CLOTHING. 

 "An' sure it's not sich a price as ye'll be askthin' 

 for the thrifle, nor meself wud be wuUin' to't, at 

 all, at all—" 



"But the rid gowld jist here in me hand to pay 

 for't. mem," sputtered the pertinacious customers, 

 who, in the shape of two Irish girls, one to choose, 



the other to buy, had tried the patience of a yonng 

 shopwoman to its utmost, in tumbling and fumb- 

 ling over her choicest embroideries of muslin and 

 cambric. 



"I can take no less ; fthe trimming is well worth 

 that," was her quiet reply. 



"Casting pearls before swine," she thought, as 

 in answer to their first inquiry she had timidly 

 opened this box of daintiest array ; and it went to 

 her heart to see how the delicate things shrank and 

 shrivelled like sensitive plants at their rude touch, 

 wilting and falling from the hot moist hands that 

 roughly tested their beauty and their strength, — 

 "jist to thry if they'll stahn' washin', mem." Still, 

 as shopwomen must, she bore it in silence, only a 

 shiver and a sigh escaping unwittingly as she 

 named the price, her eye glancing over the tat- 

 tered and soiled raiment of the questioners, rather 

 suspiciously, it must be confessed, for both seemed 

 in greater need of comfortable and clean clothing 

 than of anything ornamental. 



There was then more smoothing and pulling of 

 the muslin, and a closer scrutiny of its fanciful 

 device, accompanied by audible whispering of out- 

 landish jargon ending in the remonstrance re- 

 corded above. But the shop- woman was inflexible. 

 Nora and Bridget exhausted all their logic and 

 had begun to use a little "blarney ;" all the while 

 stretching over their red hands and grimy wrists 

 the piece of goods, which had had the good, or the 

 ill fortune to please them, when the shrill shriek 

 of a steam-whistle and the hasty peal of a bell 

 put a stop to their chaffering. The last train was 

 on the point of leaving, and twenty miles of rail- 

 road between them and "Mairy and her babby," 

 for whose christening-robe the embroidery was to 

 be bought, decided the question at once. 



The "rid gowld," thrown upon the counter, went 

 gleefully singing and dancing towards its new mis- 

 tress, glad to escape from the greasy sheepskin 

 purse which had been its prison since it left the 

 banks of the blue Shannon many months pre- 

 vious. But the hasty tearing of the muslin, sepa«- 

 rating sister 



"buds, and leaves, and sprigs, 

 And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed," 



gave forth a shrill, sharp sound, their parting fare- 

 well, dismal as the cry of a banshee. Alas, alas 

 for human hopes ! Was it, indeed, that prophetic 

 wail ? The christening dress of "Mairy 's babby" 

 before the week came round served for poor Mary's 

 shroud. 



It is the old, old story of a mother's self-sacri- 

 ficing love : during all the cold weather she had 

 been poorly clad, and denied herself needful food, 

 in order to provide this finery for her infant. The 

 little woman o-er the way, who always wore soft 

 clothing and lived daintily, had worked herself al- 

 most to a skeleton to make an outfit for her fi rstbom ; 

 and why shouldn't she, in her small way, do what 

 she could to beautify and adorn her darling, she 

 asked herself a hundred times daring those cold, 

 hungry dismal days. 



